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Whether you like it or not, school grades are important. They determine which schools – and thus, which doors – are open to a person when they enter the adult world. However, they are also becoming increasingly less important than they once were. As the access to education has increased, so too has the criteria for which school admissions boards and employers look at when determining how to pick one candidate over another.
Additionally, not every high school graduate will go down the postsecondary education route, making grades even less important than particular skills and experiences that the more creative and out-of-the-box careers require. Success is no longer just defined by degrees and financial prowess, but by other factors as well. To help your child succeed in life, become familiar with this new definition of success.
Defining success
Two lessons can be learned from the pandemic. The first lesson is that slowing down and spending more time at home can provide a more balanced life than the previous rise and grind. The second lesson is that what brings people the most joy is connection and shared experiences; missing out on this over the last two years left a big hole in many peoples’ lives.
While academic benchmarks of success, such as 1st grade reading milestones, are important and should be pursued, these two pandemic lessons are reminders that success also encompasses happiness and connection.
It’s undoubtedly true that academic success increases your child’s chance of pursuing a postsecondary degree and getting a job that pays them enough to support themselves. However, they’ll also need the following five criteria to live fulfilling lives.
Photo by Gustavo Fring from Pexels
Five essential criteria to mark your child’s success
The way they interact with others
With so many college graduates competing for jobs these days, many employers state that they’re not just looking for someone with the essential qualifications, but someone they think will be a great fit for their team.
The ability to get along well with others is instrumental to success. If your child shies away from social situations, it’s time to make the development of social skills a priority.
Their ability to process their emotions
Emotional intelligence can be defined as the ability to understand one’s emotions well enough to use them to self-regulate thoughts and feelings, show empathy, address conflict, and communicate effectively with others.
If your child bottles up their emotions, or if emotions aren’t something that are regularly discussed in your household, now is the time to change that. A child who understands how to handle their emotions will become an emotionally resilient adult.
Their desire to ask questions
Within both secondary and post-secondary institutions, the curriculum is shifting to focus less on the memorization of information and more on developing critical thinking. At its core, critical thinking is all about questioning information and conventions.
While those endless questions from your five-year-old can get annoying, try not to discourage them from being inquisitive. Critical thinking skills are highly valued in all fields.
The values they demonstrate
If someone asked you what you want the most for your child, it’s likely your first answer will be ‘to be happy.’ The second answer after this is the wish for your child to grow up to be a good person.
What defines a good person is their morals and values. When you explicitly pass on your good values to your children by actively discussing them and demonstrating them, your child will naturally mimic your behavior.
While the intrinsic quality of values may be difficult to explain to a young child, by framing them as ‘good’ and ‘fun,’ you encourage your children to engage in them more often. For example, developing your child’s motivation to do chores can be done by gamifying it into a challenge where they receive rewards after completing a certain number of tasks.
Their level of self-esteem
As any adult with a history of self-esteem issues knows, children are increasingly susceptible to developing poor self-esteem and face decades of trauma from this experience if not addressed early on.
To prevent your child from objectifying themself, take care of their physical appearance without drawing attention to it by looking after their teeth, getting them haircuts when needed, and dressing them in clean, well-fitting clothes. To help them create a resilient positive self-image, encourage positive self-talk in your home and discourage negative comments about the appearance of strangers.
Children are like sponges and absorb everything around them. You can guarantee that the little comment you made about being too fat for your jeans was taken to heart by your daughter. The same goes for that ad about getting a flat tummy on the front of a magazine in the supermarket checkout line.
A child with positive self-esteem will go on to become an adult who knows their worth, respects themselves, and believes themselves capable of achieving their dreams.
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If you are feeling down or depressed for more days than not, please seek medical attention. If you are feeling like you cannot go on, please call the suicide hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or chat here>>> https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/ Or visit the suicide prevention lifeline at https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
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